I installed the Redline leather consol/tranny overlay today...in doing so i figured i would fix the common problem of the plastic tranny cover cracking/breaking, due to the weight we put on it when we lean on it to get in the car.

If you look underneath the cover, there are two plastic supports. These supports are located closer to the back of the cover, but there is nothing closer to the front where we tend to lean more.

I had an extra tranny cover laying around, so I broke off the supports from that one, and glued then onto mine. You can use anything you might have laying around, as long as its sturdy.

The cover now has a lot more of a solid feel in the area where it meets the shifter plastics. You dont have to have your whole dash apart ither to do this, the tranny cover comes of very easy once you have the shifter console out.

Something little...but keeps you from swearing at yourself evertime youy lean on it
shawn

 

awesome man. I just put a block of wood under mine.

 

you said wood, heh. Very Informative, mine is already cracked so i will have to repair it before i install the overlay, did you have much trouble with laying down the leather?

 

I have my wide band in that space... but I basically brief everyone that sits in my passenger seat... don't pull on the door handle there... pull it closed there... don't put weight on this... don't do this... don't do that. I'm really thinking about doing what gordon did to strengthen the interior.

 

the FD should have come with a one man cockpit ...LOL... I hate having anyone in my car and having to worry about them braking things.

Jeff

 

haha ya i always have to tell people not to pull on that damn interior door handle it gets annoying. especially when its a lady and they dont understand what u mean and they grab the handle anyway....i cringe everytime i have a passenger in my car

 

It's damned pathetic that you can't even touch these cars without fear of something breaking. "DON'T TOUCH that door handle! It just looks like a handle, you aren't really supposed to use it as one..." LAME...just ******* lame.

Yeah, everything's designed to be light weight. Blah blah. There are a million places on the FD where they could have saved money by removing actual metal. But they thought it was a better idea to make the all the plastic screw bosses in the interior just strong enough to last until the first guy tries to take something apart. It's inexcusable. Meanwhile other Mazda cars from the same era have quite durable interiors without any of these problems. The FD interior team was a bunch of dopes.

 

Nice job!

Got a link for the overlay ?

:-) neil

 

you could do the same with BIC pens. take the outside parts of the pens, and cut them to length.

 

No not much trouble....did have to pull it back a couple times but i would just spray more adhesive in that section.

with mine i did do it different though....I pulled off the old vinyl instead of glueing the leather over top of it. I wasnt sure if it would be to thick with them both on there, possibly making the center shifter plastic not sit right.

 

thanks.... redlinegoods.com

cheers
shawn

 

i hate when i lean on mine i can hear it creak and stuff freaks me out.

 

Have any of you guys considered using hardened foam like they do on bumpers for support? I've also been looking into creative options to prevent breaking.

 

thanks for the write-up, i'll do this today

 

In all honesty this way is simple and easy, if you ever have to take cover off again the supports obviously just go with the cover. If you throw foam in there your could end up with more of a mess (falling apart), plus its just big and bulky.

I dont think you need to get too creative, know one will see it. you just need a little extra support, but what ever you feel like using is fine to stop the cracking.

 

This is a great idea. I hate having to be so cautious of the center console and I cringe whenever I accidentally put an arm on it.

I don't have an extra cover to cut the little pegs off of, but I feel like I might have seen something similar when strolling through Home Depot or Lowes. Maybe a plastic spacer of some sort or even a small diameter pvc pipe could possibly work.

Just tossing some ideas out there...

 

i need to fix mine but mine is broken towards the back...

 

Great idea!!

If the vinyl has not ripped yet, you can still get in there and fix it. Take the cover off and Just spread some glue where the plastic is cracked. Then go out and grab some PVC as mentioned or whatever you think might work.

These can be placed anywhere you think it may help, you dont have to put the supports exactly where i did. If you feel you need support in another area, throw them in there also.

cheers
shawn